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The Results Are In! The Guide of the Year Awards 2022 01/31/23
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I've recently been playing a visual novel called Sweet Fuse: At Your Side for the PSP (yeah, sorry folks, it's another game without trophies). This won't be one of my usual (overly) lengthy missives, so fret not to all of those groaning about the inevitable 5 second scroll to get past this nonsense (prolly more like a 1-2 second scroll, ain't ya lucky? An extra 3-4 seconds of your life saved!) . Not gonna go too much into detail, as I feel I never can much with VNs, so easy to spoil 'em if you provide too much info and all.
Anyway, my main reason for wanting to write my thoughts on this is due to just how bizzaro the premise is. You play as Keiji Inafune's (yes, THAT Keiji Inafune) fictional niece whose been thrown into a killing game of sorts, in a theme park based on fictitious video games, complete with an equally wacko villain - some dude in a pig outfit with a penchant for messing with the hapless game participants.
If this sounds familiar to you, yes, it is kinda reminiscent of Danganronpa and Zero Escape/Nonary Games. Main difference with Sweet Fuse being it's an otome (for the uninitiated: basically a dating sim where you play as a female character and have a cast of male characters to romance) first and foremost. It still has a mystery going down though, and it was a fairly engaging one. Definitely not quite as interesting as those aforementioned VN series, but it still scratched that itch somewhat. Also, the artist for this game happens to be the Ace Attorney artist (Tatsurō Iwamoto), another beloved little VN series of mine.
The only real "gameplay" to be had in this title aside from making choices, is the occasional sections where the game will throw you into our protagonist's (Saki) mind and have highlighted words that you must pick to solve certain conundrums, which the game refers to as "Explosive Insights". It's a tad similar to Hangman's Gambit in Danganronpa, if you're familiar.
It's fairly wholesome/mellow in terms of the dating aspects, but it's still an overarching theme of course. I personally didn't really have any strong opinions either way on the romantic aspects, they were serviceable enough, though because it didn't feel too heavily focused on romance to begin with, it actually felt a little forced when it did shift focus to the lovey dovey sections during certain routes.
There's some routes that actually kinda spoil other ones, so there's some characters you'll probably want to avoid befriending before others if you're looking to complete all routes (recommended, of course). If not, you'll have to complete the game at least once regardless in order to unlock the secret route which will ultimately shed light on all the story's lingering questions and mysteries.
I'd definitely recommend it if you're into mystery visual novels/games at all. But as aforementioned, keep in mind it's primarily a dating sim. Also, some of the bachelors' ages are, uh, quite up there compared to our high school protagonist, so just another thing to keep in mind. That, and the lack of any "real" gameplay. If that isn't enough to deter you and you're looking to fill a Danganronpa shaped void (surely I'm not the only one, right?), it's worth checking out.
Now to just wait for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code for a hopefully more authentic Danganronpa fix.
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What was with Inafune & worming his way into niche products in wonky situations. o3o
Anyway, killing games aren't my forté, neither are most otome (Collar x Malice = a rare exception, although that game veered heavily toward detective mystery over prettyboy romance), but shoot, write about any video game that crosses your threshold, if you deign to. Especially the bizarro games....actually, come to think, Otomate = an Idea Factory label, same with Neptunia.... Inafune had a connection with them, clearly. Freaky.
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I've never played a Neptunia (and the number of games in the series now is too daunting for me), but that's... certainly, something.
I started giving otome (and galge) VNs more of a chance in recent times, as I kinda dismissed them previously (aside from Hatoful Boyfriend), believing they were just dating sims, which didn't interest me. But there's plenty that seem to have a lot of interesting plot (no, not that kinda plot
though it's fine if they do), themes and characterisation outside of the dating aspects. I still generally prefer visual novels without the lovey dovey "choose your waifu/husbando" routes, but I've played plenty that essentially had that even if they weren't exactly dating sims, so I thought "how bad can otome/galge really be?" Turns out there's several that have more going for them than just the pretty girl/boy romance, I never realised there were some as or more wacky than Hatoful Boyfriend out there.
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At some point I need to go back and play SMT 1. I actually got pretty far into it
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I'm surprised how much I've enjoyed the old MegaTen games like SMT 1, as I'm not massively into DRPGs otherwise. Maybe them being MegaTen helps though, lol. I experienced some glitches with SMT 1 (SNES version), even with a fan patch that supposedly fixed them. Nothing game breaking though, managed to complete the game on the neutral route, which is what I tend to aim for in MegaTen games (since they're often the "true/canon" endings).
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